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FTC: Warner Bros. paid “influencers” for promotion of Shadow of Mordor game

Jul

12

2016

US watchdog FTC reached a settlement with Warner Bros. about paying for positive reviews of the game Shadow of Mordor without known. Among the paid “influencers” are popular YouTube personalities like PewDiePie.

According to the FTC were paid videos viewed over 5.5 million times, of which 3.5 million views on the channel of PewDiePie. The watchdog has ruled that Warner Bros. in the future to make such deals public and can not do prevent sponsored content are the independent opinions of reviewers. Consumers would have the right to have this information, according to a spokesman.

Warner would have paid in 2014 amounts from hundreds to tens of thousands of dollars to promote the Lord of the Rings game Shadow of Mordor. The conditions were that the YouTube personalities are needed outlets positive about the game and had to see any bugs on the head, the FTC wrote.

Warner did have given instructions for displaying a notice that they were content to pay. This was to be shown below the video, but because they often disappeared under the ‘show more’ button on YouTube, according to the watchdog. In statements on social media such as Facebook and Twitter, this communication was additionally deleted in its entirety.

The settlement does not include any penalty for Warner Bros., it only includes the obligation to ensure in future that the consumer is informed. Last week it became known that two other YouTube personalities a gambling site in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive used in their videos without telling that they are the owners of this site. In that case, there is not yet taken enforcement action, writes Ars Technica. The two have been indicted .